*The gentrification of his beloved New York is something that Spike Lee is not a fan of.
The filmmaker fully went in with a seven-minute rant against gentrification in New York and his opposition of people of color being pushed out of their respective areas, NY Mag reports.
“Here’s the thing: I grew up here in Fort Greene. I grew up here in New York. It’s changed. And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?,” said Lee, who was on hand as a guest lecturer at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for a Black History Month event . “The garbage wasn’t picked up every motherf*ckin’ day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. P.S. 20 was not good. P.S. 11. Rothschild 294. The police weren’t around. When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something.”
As he continued, Lee referenced the home his father, a jazz musician, purchased in 1968 while noting how the atmosphere has changed to the point where newer residents have become sensitive to things that never struck a nerve with long-time inhabitants as complaints are now made of noise in the neighborhood.
“Then comes the motherf*ckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome. You can’t discover this! We been here. You just can’t come and bogart,” he said. “There were brothers playing motherf*ckin’ African drums in Mount Morris Park for 40 years and now they can’t do it anymore because the new inhabitants said the drums are loud.”
To hear Spike Lee’s entire rant, where he criticizes real estate developers over the new neighborhood names and the pricing out of people who can no longer afford the rent, click on the video below:
SOURCE: EURweb.com
Article and Picture Courtesy of EUR Web
Audio Courtesy of Soundcloud and EUR Web
Spike Lee Shares His Thoughts on Gentrification in NY Through Ranting was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
